Page 33 of Forever Christmas
Chapter 12: Gavin
My little sister is fun.
We’ve decided on Cooke’s Peak. She didn’t have anything resembling hiking boots, but she’s only one size smaller than our mother. And Mom had an ancient pair, probably from her youth, but in decent shape. With two pairs of socks, they work.
So we’re off.
I’ve loaded a string bag with water and lunch. We have hats shadingour faces, and I was the responsible brother, making June put on sunscreen.
It’s weird, seeing her as a real person and not a little girl. She was only eight when I left. The last thing I remember was how she clung to Corabelle’s mom, asking if she was still an aunt now that Finn was dead.
She looks nothing like that now, tall and lanky in her jeans and pink T-shirt with a kitten on it. Herlong brown hair is in a ponytail.
“You doing all right?” I ask as the trail moves from dirt to rock.
“Totally. This is fun!” She picks her way across a bigger cluster and we settle onto dirt again. “Mom and Dad never take me anywhere.”
“What about your friends?” I won’t admit it, but I worry about her, isolated in that house with my surly father and a mother who believes in obeying her husband.
“They’re okay, but it’s more about texting and hanging out at home. They’re not very outdoorsy.”
I’m glad to hear she has other places to go. “You have a phone already?”
“Duh! I’m fourteen!” Her eyes roll.
It makes me laugh. “I didn’t have a phone at fourteen,” I say.
“You didn’t need one. You lived at Corabelle’s and never talked to anybody else.”
She pushes ahead of me on the narrow trail.Around us, scrub brush and rocks start their rise toward the summit. Beyond that, dry dead grasses lie listlessly against the earth.
We can make it about two-thirds of the way before we’ll get to the hard scrabble. But the part we’re tackling is a fine hike anyway, a good-enough challenge to make you feel like you’re really doing something.
We trudge along in silence a while, hearing littlebut the sound of the ground crunching beneath our feet. As the incline begins and the rocks get larger, something you have to hold on to and climb, we see a couple other hikers ahead. They’re more experienced, though, and take off for a tall face you have to climb with ropes. We head the other direction for rocks you can pick your way through without equipment.
After about an hour, I ask her,“How far you want to climb?”
“I can keep going.”
“Remember we have to go back down.”
She looks behind us. “Way easier going down than up!”
True, although it can be tricky on the rocks.
We keep going.
Cooke’s Peak is six miles each way, and I figure we’ve covered maybe two of them. But it’s cathartic, the decisions simple, one path or the other, this rock or that. It’s like a puzzle laidout by nature, asking us to unlock its secrets and see the magic of the whole view once it’s put together.
After a second hour, we stop and eat. It’s hot now, the sun beating down.
“Glad you got these hats,” June says, gulping down her PB&J.
“Yeah, it’s brutal.” I’m glad Corabelle didn’t come. She’s already anxious enough about the pregnancy. This would definitely be too much.
When we’ve puteverything away, I ask her, “Still up or head back?”
She turns her face to the sun. “Let’s keep going.”
